I would like to do something with the Canterbury Tales out of the reading list (either Clerk's tale or the Prioress's tale), because I have read some of the Canterbury Tales in high school and loved it, but I never had the opportunity to closely examine it (my old high school teacher made the class create their own Chaucer-style poems as a project instead).
Checkpoint 2:
Summary of the Text:
The Clerk's Tale is about a Marquis and his wife living in Italy, and the Marquis is testing his wife to see if she is the most patient one. The main characters of this story are Walter the Marquis and his wife Grisildis. The story is split up into 5 parts (or rather, pars), as well as the prologue and the L'Envoy, so I will be addressing what happens in each part (excluding the prologue because it only shows the Host asking the Clerk to tell a story and to tell it in plain English). In the first part, the setting is described and Walter, the bachelor Marquis, is introduced. The townsfolk ask Walter to go get married, and he says he will and he will pick his own wife. In the second part, Grisildis is introduced as a poor, virginal, non-alcoholic, hardworking girl living with her father named Janicula. Walter sees her from afar and decides he wants to marry her, so he goes over to her house and asks her if she wants to be his wife (along with asking her father for permission to marry his daughter), and she says yes. The wedding happens, everyone celebrates, and about 9 months later (the text says it wasn't a long time after the wedding (7, ll. 442-443), so there isn't a clear cut amount of time that has passed aside from the common knowledge of babies being born 9 months after conception) Grisildis has a daughter. In the third part, a bit of time passes (enough so that the daughter isn't being breastfed anymore) and Walter decided to test Grisildis's patience by taking away her daughter; he even tells her that he will be testing her patience by doing this and she basically tells him that she will accept anything he says. The daughter is taken away by someone who works for Walter to be raised elsewhere, though Grisildis presumes her dead. In the fourth part, 4 years pass and Grisildis has a son, then 2 years pass, and then Walter decides to test Grisildis again by taking away the son. After that, a rumor spread amongst the townsfolk that Walter killed his daughter, so the Pope asks him to marry some other woman to calm the tension between Walter and the townsfolk. In the fifth part of the story, Walter informs Grisildis about what the Pope asks of him and tells her to go back to her old home in nothing but her smock. A little bit after that, Walter goes back to her house and asks her to help prep for the "wedding", and she says yes. After the preparations and when the crowd is gathered around, Walter tells everyone that he was testing his wife's patience and she passed it, he still loves her, and the rumored dead children are alive and well. The children are brought in and Grisildis faints from joy, and the story ends on a happy note where, years later, the daughter marries into a rich family and the son inherits the land (as well as marrying and testing his wife). The "L'Envoy De Chaucer" section basically tells us that a patient woman like Grisildis doesn't exist and the men shouldn't try what is said in the story at home because their wives will not put up with such behavior.
Critical Analysis/Close Reading (not in order of the reading):
Quote 1:
"And she for wonder took of it no keepe. / She herde nat what thyng he to hire seyde. / She ferde as she had stert out of a sleep, / Til she out of hir mazedness abreyde." (16, ll. 1058-1061)
This quote happens shortly after Walter says that she has passed his test of patience. I think this seems to imply that she was in that state of mind throughout this test, which lasted for several years. This would probably explain how she was able to easily accept the commands Walter makes when he tells her that he is testing her and will take away her children. There are references of her being in that state of mind throughout the text, such in the first portion of the test where the daughter is taken away and presumed slain, and Grisildis is just standing there watching what's happening with a blank face. This would beg the question of how she could tolerate being in that state of mind for such a long time where she is numb to all the things her husband puts her through such as taking away her children and making her leave the house in her smock because he is supposedly going to marry another woman.
Quote 2:
"For which it semed thus, that of hem two / Ther nas but o wyl, for as Walter leste, / The same lust was hire plesance also. / And, God be thanked, al fil for the beste. / She shewed wel for no wordly unreste / A wyf, as of hirself, nothyng ne sholde / Wille in effect but as hir housbonde wolde." (11-12, ll. 715-721)
This quote happens after the son is taken away from Grisildis and supposedly slain, and it is the very quote I clearly remember from when I first read this back in high school and has bugged me since then. This shows that she is only doing what her husband tells her to do since as a woman she doesn't have any ability to make her own choices, as noted by the last two lines where the footnote on page 12 translates it as "she clearly showed (that) no wife, because of any worldly misfortune, should, for her own sake, will anything, in fact, but as her husband wills it". The second and third lines of the quote is slightly confusing to me because it is saying that his desire is the same as her desire, implying that he is molding his desires to conform to the wife's, yet for someone who is clearly putting his marriage on the line in order to test her patience he would most likely be the one to mold her desires, as shown in earlier portions of the text. This entire quote looks like a summary of someone who wants to take control over the wife on her life choices; at this point, you would come to the conclusion that Walter sounds like a controlling husband by the time you reach this quote if you haven't figured out the red flags from the two incidences of him taking his children away from the wife just to test her patience.
Quote 3:
"I blame him thus: that he considereth noght / In tyme comynge what hym myghte bityde, / But in his lust present was al his thoght, / As for to hauke and hunte on every syde. / Wel ny alle othere cures leet he slyde, / And eek he nolde - and that was worst of alle - / Wedde no wyf for noght that may bifalle." (2, ll. 78-84)
This quote occurs near the beginning of the story where it first describes Walter the Marquis. The second and third line of the quote where it describes him as someone who doesn't seem to think of possible consequences for his actions fits him since later on in the story, he didn't seem to think about the possibility of people spreading rumors about how he killed his children when he decides to take away his children from his wife to be raised elsewhere. I think the use of the words "hauke and hunte" is oddly accurate in describing his motivations to get what he wants because once he marries Grisildis, he has the idea to test her patience and goes after it. He mainly tries to hit the possible weak spots in her heart that might make her lose patience and leave him, such as making her give up her children, seems similar to how it is done when hunting for an animal.
Annotated Bibliography:
Article 1:
McCall, John P. "The Clerk's Tale And The Theme Of Obedience*." Modern Language Quarterly 27.3 (1966): 260-269. Academic Search Complete. Web. 19 Oct. 2014.
This short, 10-paged journal article/literary criticism talks about the Clerk's Tale and the idea of how Grisilde willingly gives up her free will in order to achieve sovereignty. I would say the intended audience of this paper would be for someone who has read the other arguments, who has read the Clerk's Tale, who is a little familiar with religious references, and those who are English majors (since this article is published from University of Cincinnati so it can be assumed that the author is most likely a professor). He shows off his thesis firstly by telling us his thesis is different from other people who believe that Grisilde is "'an ideal masochist'" (260) for enduring Walter's test. Then later on he makes the intriguing point of how Grisilde's sacrifices of her will and joy is rewarded similarly with a Christ-like resurrection of being the new wife that Walter "remarries" in the fifth part of the story. I would say this is a decent article to show for an alternative idea from seeing Grisilde as an unintentional victim of Walter's control. This article is from 1966, so this article is pretty old as well as his references since they are from the 1950s and 1960s (which was probably recent in McCall's time).
Article 2:
Ashe, Laura. "Reading Like A Clerk In The Clerk's Tale." Modern Language Review 101.4 (2006): 935-944. Academic Search Complete. Web. 19 Oct. 2014.
This 10-paged journal article talks of the idea of the story being a religious allegory for being rewarded for your sacrifices, similar to the journal McCall wrote, except it also talks about the Clerk. I think the intended audience is definitely someone who is familiar with religious elements, and someone who is either an English or Humanities major (since Laura Ashe is an Associate Professor studying Medieval Literature at the Worcester College in Oxford, England). Ashe, within the article, argues against other theories she has heard from others, such as Mann's proposal of Grisilde, being in the same state of being numb to the events around her, pressures Walter to change (Mann 817). This article is good for not just arguing against other articles a little more effectively than McCall's moments of criticizing other authors, but also for her comparison of Grisilde and the Clerk and how they are similar, a topic of which is rarely seen in other articles; This would be helpful for when I want to figure out why a Clerk would tell such a story. This journal, and the one written by Mitchell, is most likely the most recent one I have found so far.
Article 3:
Mitchell, J. Allan. "Chaucer's Clerk's Tale And The Question Of Ethical Monstrosity." Studies In Philology 102.1 (2005): 1-26. Academic Search Complete. Web. 19 Oct. 2014.
This 26-paged article talks about a couple of different interpretations that The Clerk's Tale could take on, such as the feminist approach where The Clerk's Tale might show some aspect of misogyny, much like how other people who have read The Prioress's Tale might think of the possibility that Chaucer might be antisemitic. I think the intended audience is definitely for those who are English majors and those who know about the Bible and can recognize other literature references, since Mitchell is an English professor who specializes in Medieval Literature at the University of Victoria in England. Mitchell definitely admits that there isn't any one solid way to interpret The Clerk's Tale before he goes on to talk about a couple of points, which is split up into sections. It can get confusing at times because it isn't clear what his view is until you reach around page 16 of the article, but at the same time such confusion would be what drives home the point that the story is complex and doesn't have one solid interpretation of it. This would be good for arguing how there's many ways to interpret and analyze the text, as well as providing a Feminist perspective to Clerk's Tale and the view that Grisildis's choice to obey Walter to a T.
Checkpoint3:
Query:
Before I looked into the journal articles, I only had a couple of questions in mind from what I read of The Clerk's Tale, which were "Why does Grisildis put up with Walter's tests?" and " What historical context (if any) can be connected to Grisildis's obedient behavior?" Those two questions pretty much helped me to guide where I would go to start my research. After looking through the research articles, I ended up with a lot of questions relating to what I have researched where it sort of started opening up a can of worms in terms of how I should interpret the text and the characters. These questions include:
Is Grisildis really in the wrong for accepting Walter's conditions and following them almost without question?
What are the wifely standards of Chaucer's time, and which has Pagan elements and Christian elements?
What kind of story would The Clerk's Tale be considered? A parable? An allegory?
Does the story reflect Chaucer's own opinion towards woman and wives? If so, is it a negative opinion or a positive opinion towards women?
What does knowing the Clerk's point of view have to do with the story he tells? How are the Clerk and Grisildis similar?
Those questions were from what I gathered from reading the articles and the book and for the most part, some of the papers make me question some passages in the text in terms of how my original reading of The Clerk's Tale seems to either agree, disagree, or make me think a little deeper on what the article authors say.
Trends in Scholarship:
I have started to notice several patterns within the articles I have been reviewing in terms of viewpoints as well as what article some of these articles and book reference the most. The first would be what they would consider what kind of story The Clerk's Tale could be considered since the articles consider seeing it as an allegory on being a devoted Christian by enduring the test and sacrificing your joy where you ultimately get rewarded for passing the test. Another thing I noticed is a debate where it wonders on whether if it is bad for Grisildis to comply with Walter's request in the sense that so far 2 articles (Mitchell's and Finnegan's) have said that Grisildis is possibly a monster for following Walter's orders. There is something that all these articles have in common (more specifically, Mitchell, Shutters, Finnegan, Ashe, and McCall; in other words, every article I have so far that isn't the book by Hallissy) is that they reference the same book by Elizabeth Salter titled Chaucer: The Knight's Tale and The Clerk's Tale, but what's different is how they have used the book in their paper. Mitchell and Ashe uses it to help support his paper, while McCall, Finnegan, and Shutters seems to only use it for reference for me to look it up myself.
Annotated Bibliography:
Book 1:
Hallissy, Margaret. Clean Maids, True Wives, Steadfast Widows: Chaucer's Women and Medieval Codes of Conduct. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1993. Print.
This book mostly talks about the women within all of Chaucer's works, not just The Clerk's Tale, and how these women behaved in the Medieval times. The intended audience would be someone who is an English major and a feminist since Hallissy is an English professor who specializes in Medievalist Literature and the women in them at C. W. Post College, Long Island University. Out of the over 200 pages in the book, only 12 of its pages are dedicated to The Clerk's Tale, which is collected under the chapter titled "Women's Speech and Domestic Harmony"; this would show that the rest of the book focuses more so on the other texts than they do on The Clerk'sTale. Hallissy admits that there is more than one possible interpretation of the text but, unlike Mitchell, she narrows her view a little immediately afterwards by going with the interpretation that Walter is a monster who doesn't give Grisildis many choices. This is a good text for when you want to figure out a little bit behind why Grisildis acts the way she does and how it is part of what a wife has to do to keep her husband calm.
This journal article/ essay talks about comparing Clerk's Tale and Legend of Good Women (both texts are written by Chaucer), and how Grisildis takes on the lessons of Pagan virtues of being a wife and mixes it with Christianity.I think the targeted audience for this would be English students and those who are feminist, since Shutters teaches English and specializes in gender studies, medieval literature at Colorado State University. Shutters's argument also heads toward finding the similarities between Clerk's Tale and Legend of Good Women (for which there was enough to make that point since they are pretty close in plot except that the latter uses Pagan characters) and tell which aspects of Pagan wifely values are there and which ones got changed to a Christian aspect. Other stories that were similar to The Canterbury Tales, such as Chaucer's Physician's Tale, Franklin's Tale, and Boccaccio's De Claris Mulieribus, but used Pagan characters, were also used for comparison for a brief bit at the end. This article is good when you want to compare Clerk's Tale to other stories, as well as used to have an idea of how the virtues of womanhood from Pagan and Christian ideas came together and influenced Grisildis's character.
Article 3:
Finnegan, Robert Emmett. "`She Should Have Said No To Walter': Griselda's Promise In The Clerk's Tale." English Studies 75.4 (1994): 303-321. Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 Nov. 2014.
This 19 page article/literary criticism is one that appears to not have anything worth of thought but turns out to have one or two good things. I partly think the intended audience might be for those who study English, knows some Latin, reads deeply into words on their root meanings and having historical knowledge of what laws were there during Grisildis's time because Finnegan is an English Graduate Professor who specializes in Old and Middle English and Literature. Finnegan's thesis, based on what I thought the intended audience would be, is reliant on interpreting 2 words (assenten and consenten), using the rules of the court from Grisildis's time, and then "judge [Grisildis] accordingly" (303) for her being an accomplice in the homicide of her children (even though it is known to those who read the story that the children are alive). Finnegan seems to have started off on a semi-good step in trying to assert his notion, but ultimately I had trouble along the way but it wasn't trouble in comprehending so much as the way the article is set up. I'm a little disappointed in this article because over 5 pages of it has quotes every other paragraph which can get a little tiring and annoying to read, even more so when some of the quotes seem to be in Latin and there is no translation for it except for Finnegan having a tiny summary before the quote. Finnegan seems to have also noticed the allegory of comparing Grisildis to famous Biblical characters like Abraham, but he tears that apart by saying that God wouldn't have done to Abraham what Walter did to Grisildis and saying that Walter's actions "ruined an Abraham named Grisildis" (321). This article might be somewhat good if I decided to argue against the articles that seem to imply or outright say that Grisildis had no choice or that Grisildis is innocent in this story.
Checkpoint4:
Journal Article Abstract:
(may be subject to change as I write my paper):
Grisildis is a poor woman who ended up marrying a rich Marquis named Walter, and in order to stay married to him, she has to endure his tests. His tests include taking away the children one at a time, kicking her out for a new wife and making her set up the wedding for them, just to see if she seems the most patient woman worthy of him. My ultimate question is why, why would she put up with that from her husband, especially if the Envoy warns against having the wives being tested like that? I would be working to answer that question along with one of my query questions "is Grisildis really in the wrong for accepting Walter's conditions and following them almost without question?" This would involve a little bit of analyzing of Grisildis and Walter with analytical help with the likes of Elizabeth Salter and others who believe the characters are viewed differently depending on how you view the text, whether it be from a religious aspect, a realism aspect, a feminist aspect, or a human aspect. I would define the "human aspect" as the reaction many people would have to the story (Walter is the abusive husband while Grisildis is just following his orders and being patient) but with a little more thought put into it. Each of these aspects affects how Grisildis and Walter are perceived in the story where it sometimes paints one or the other as the villain. The ones who perceive Walter as a villain are Morgan (human aspect), Ashton (feminist aspect), and Salter (for the realism view); Morgan also takes it a bit further by stating that their marriage was more of a lord and subject relationship than a husband and wife relationship once they got married. Ashton and Mitchell provide most of the feminist aspect of the work. Mitchell brings up a good point at the possibility of Grisildis scaring Walter by following his orders very closely, with Salter possibly agreeing with that when she says his emotion was more "guilty surprise than admiration" (Salter 57), though Mitchell thinks Grisildis is in the wrong for doing so. The Envoy will also be briefly considered because Mitchell sees the Envoy as a joke when it really should be seen more as a warning.
Annotated Bibliography:
Book 2:
Salter, Elizabeth. Chaucer: The Knight's Tale and the Clerk's Tale. Great Neck, New York: Barron's Educational Series, Inc, 1962. Print.
This is it: The book that every journal article in checkpoints 2 and 3 have been referencing (or rather, Finnegan, Shutters, Mitchell, Ashe, and McCall). This small 70 page book talks about both The Knight's Tale and The Clerk's Tale in detail with bolded sections to indicate what she will be talking about in each section of thought. This would be aimed at English majors since the book says that Salter is a "University Lecturer in English [in] Cambridge" (page isn't numbered but it has the title, author, city of publication, and publishing company on it). Only about the last 28 pages (excluding the "summing up" and bibliography sections) are dedicated to The Clerk's Tale. Salter seems to view Grisildis and Walter from 2 perspectives: a religious perspective and a realism perspective. For the religious aspect section, there's a mix of "Grisildis is like certain religious figures in the bible, so the story is a religious allegory/parable" like what Ashe and McCall would argue (though a little less of it), and a bit of how Grisildis and Walter are perceived. There are also comparisons to Petrarch (one of the source materials Chaucer used for the story) before she talks about the language style and close analysis of words (that's long and not as narrowed down to two words like what Finnegan) that makes it a religious fable (aka, the long and not too relevant to my topic portion of the paper). As for how Grisildis and Walter are perceived religious-wise, you can't really sympathize with Grisildis since in religious texts those who suffer get rewarded at the end, as well as the possibility that it can be "comparable to [a] saint's life" (40) when read from a "purely human standpoint" (40); as for Walter, Salter believes Walter's timeline for the punishments towards Grisildis is a little vague so it might mean it didn't last as long in the story or any other off-camera behavior. The realist aspect is basically telling us that Grisilda has inner thoughts and emotions that allow her to have brief moments of emotion and assertion that allow us as a reader to sympathize her, which means she won't have that distancing effect of being comparable to a religious symbol. As for Walter, the realism aspect sees him as a fiend with a petty motive to test Grisildis's patience. This book would be good for analyzing Grisildis and Walter based on how they are perceived differently depending on how the story is being viewed.
Article 2:
Morgan, Gerald. "The Logic of the Clerk's Tale". The Modern Language Review 104.1 (2009): 1-25. JSTOR. Web. 24 November 2014.
This 25 page journal article talks about how this test of patience is necessary to teach the value of patience and humility because Grisildis is meant to be seen as a personification of those things, and not meant to be seen as something husbands and wives do to each other (6). I believe the target audience for this article would be English majors and those who study Chaucer, since he is a lecturer in Dublin whose other articles were on Chaucer. I am a little skeptical of Morgan's reputation because even though he is a lecturer in the School of English at Trinity College Dublin (in Dublin, Ireland) with publications (from 2008-2009) revolving around Chaucer and his other tales, it's not good if the school's website* says he is "on probation" and it doesn't tell what he did to be on it. Continuing on with the article, it feels like there are parts where it seems as though he mentions the wanted parts for a bit and then I skim until I find another good part, even though he does what Salter does and have bolded section headers for separate thoughts, except that he organizes them by events in the story not on the theme of the thought. As for what he thinks about Walter, he believes the relationship between Walter and Grisildis is more lord and subject than husband and wife (11), and Grisildis's will isn't considered when Walter asked Janicula for Grisildis's hand in marriage. I think this article has potential for providing a different viewpoint on Grisildis and Walter, even though there are times where he focuses at times on the Clerk and seems to have written what appears to be an intellectual equivalent to a reaction journal with quotes, some summary, and analyses. I think this is also probably the first article (aside from Hallissey's book) that wasn't suggesting that Grisildis is comparable to a religious figure or that the story is a parable/allegory, so this would increase the value of the paper having a different view on things.
Article 3:
Ashton, Gail. "Patient Mimesis: Griselda and the Clerk's Tale". Chaucer Review 32.3 (1998): 232-38. JSTOR. Web. 24 November 2014.
This 7 page journal article/literary criticism* talks about the possibility of Grisildis hiding her true self behind a mask when she following Walter's orders. I think the target audience for this might be English majors and feminists since she is a lecturer in Manchester, UK that focuses on women and literature and has written a few books on how to make it easier to study Chaucer. Though after reading through it, it read more like a feminist literary criticism due to the short length and some of the phrases said, such as "patriarchy" and "desired feminine behavior". This was a decent paper to read through since I have never considered this possibility for Grisildis before, even though I had a sneaking question on why she was in an emotionless state of mind throughout the test. The thing I didn't like about this is when I was reading it I kept stopping once every so often and mutter to myself either "That's kind of a bold claim there" or "OK, how so?", but after rereading it I realized the answer for the claims were right after it. This might be good for providing a feminist view that focuses on Grisilda and how she has to behave this way so she can appear patient to Walter. Also, Laura Ashe references and quotes from this article in her footnotes, so that way if I make a decision to let this one go in the final paper Ashton's work can live on referenced.
*I was confused because I thought it was a journal article since it was under the results for scholarly peer-reviewed articles, the results call it an academic journal, and it is published in a journal article, yet the document type says "Literary Criticism"; I guess this is what happens when you don't read or pay close enough attention to the document type section of the article page when doing a search. This confusion is why I will be editing the other annotations with "journal article/literary criticism" to indicate the ones whose article page matched the aforementioned confusing situation.
Argument Against Scholarly Article:
The article I will be arguing against is J. Allan Mitchell's "Chaucer's Clerk's Tale and the Question of Ethical Monstrosity" because one of his statements have rubbed me the wrong way. The statement I disagree with involves his reading of the Envoy since he reads one of the lines as a "joke...that women are better (italics were in original quote) than that nowadays because prudent wives would not consent to idolatry or homicide!" (15). I dislike that interpretation for a few reasons: 1. that joke is reliant on assuming that the people who are reading the Clerk's Tale actually believe the people of back then treated their wives like how Walter treated his; 2. it is reliant on ; and 3. if he had actually read through the whole Envoy instead of picking out bits and pieces, he might have noticed the Envoy is there to warn and discourage the men who read this story, take it literally or as truth, and decide to see if their wife is as patient as Grisildis. Mitchell's argument would not have been any more convincing if he quoted the second stanza with his fractured quoting of the first stanza because while it may help his argument by actaully involving the joked "noble wyves, ful of heigh prudence" (1183), the second stanza is more of a warning towards the women who could become potential Grisildises by telling them not to let their husbands treat them as badly as Walter.
Medievalist for a Semester!
Checkpoint 1:
I would like to do something with the Canterbury Tales out of the reading list (either Clerk's tale or the Prioress's tale), because I have read some of the Canterbury Tales in high school and loved it, but I never had the opportunity to closely examine it (my old high school teacher made the class create their own Chaucer-style poems as a project instead).
Checkpoint 2:
Summary of the Text:
The Clerk's Tale is about a Marquis and his wife living in Italy, and the Marquis is testing his wife to see if she is the most patient one. The main characters of this story are Walter the Marquis and his wife Grisildis. The story is split up into 5 parts (or rather, pars), as well as the prologue and the L'Envoy, so I will be addressing what happens in each part (excluding the prologue because it only shows the Host asking the Clerk to tell a story and to tell it in plain English). In the first part, the setting is described and Walter, the bachelor Marquis, is introduced. The townsfolk ask Walter to go get married, and he says he will and he will pick his own wife. In the second part, Grisildis is introduced as a poor, virginal, non-alcoholic, hardworking girl living with her father named Janicula. Walter sees her from afar and decides he wants to marry her, so he goes over to her house and asks her if she wants to be his wife (along with asking her father for permission to marry his daughter), and she says yes. The wedding happens, everyone celebrates, and about 9 months later (the text says it wasn't a long time after the wedding (7, ll. 442-443), so there isn't a clear cut amount of time that has passed aside from the common knowledge of babies being born 9 months after conception) Grisildis has a daughter. In the third part, a bit of time passes (enough so that the daughter isn't being breastfed anymore) and Walter decided to test Grisildis's patience by taking away her daughter; he even tells her that he will be testing her patience by doing this and she basically tells him that she will accept anything he says. The daughter is taken away by someone who works for Walter to be raised elsewhere, though Grisildis presumes her dead. In the fourth part, 4 years pass and Grisildis has a son, then 2 years pass, and then Walter decides to test Grisildis again by taking away the son. After that, a rumor spread amongst the townsfolk that Walter killed his daughter, so the Pope asks him to marry some other woman to calm the tension between Walter and the townsfolk. In the fifth part of the story, Walter informs Grisildis about what the Pope asks of him and tells her to go back to her old home in nothing but her smock. A little bit after that, Walter goes back to her house and asks her to help prep for the "wedding", and she says yes. After the preparations and when the crowd is gathered around, Walter tells everyone that he was testing his wife's patience and she passed it, he still loves her, and the rumored dead children are alive and well. The children are brought in and Grisildis faints from joy, and the story ends on a happy note where, years later, the daughter marries into a rich family and the son inherits the land (as well as marrying and testing his wife). The "L'Envoy De Chaucer" section basically tells us that a patient woman like Grisildis doesn't exist and the men shouldn't try what is said in the story at home because their wives will not put up with such behavior.
Critical Analysis/Close Reading (not in order of the reading):
Quote 1:
"And she for wonder took of it no keepe. / She herde nat what thyng he to hire seyde. / She ferde as she had stert out of a sleep, / Til she out of hir mazedness abreyde." (16, ll. 1058-1061)
This quote happens shortly after Walter says that she has passed his test of patience. I think this seems to imply that she was in that state of mind throughout this test, which lasted for several years. This would probably explain how she was able to easily accept the commands Walter makes when he tells her that he is testing her and will take away her children. There are references of her being in that state of mind throughout the text, such in the first portion of the test where the daughter is taken away and presumed slain, and Grisildis is just standing there watching what's happening with a blank face. This would beg the question of how she could tolerate being in that state of mind for such a long time where she is numb to all the things her husband puts her through such as taking away her children and making her leave the house in her smock because he is supposedly going to marry another woman.
Quote 2:
"For which it semed thus, that of hem two / Ther nas but o wyl, for as Walter leste, / The same lust was hire plesance also. / And, God be thanked, al fil for the beste. / She shewed wel for no wordly unreste / A wyf, as of hirself, nothyng ne sholde / Wille in effect but as hir housbonde wolde." (11-12, ll. 715-721)
This quote happens after the son is taken away from Grisildis and supposedly slain, and it is the very quote I clearly remember from when I first read this back in high school and has bugged me since then. This shows that she is only doing what her husband tells her to do since as a woman she doesn't have any ability to make her own choices, as noted by the last two lines where the footnote on page 12 translates it as "she clearly showed (that) no wife, because of any worldly misfortune, should, for her own sake, will anything, in fact, but as her husband wills it". The second and third lines of the quote is slightly confusing to me because it is saying that his desire is the same as her desire, implying that he is molding his desires to conform to the wife's, yet for someone who is clearly putting his marriage on the line in order to test her patience he would most likely be the one to mold her desires, as shown in earlier portions of the text. This entire quote looks like a summary of someone who wants to take control over the wife on her life choices; at this point, you would come to the conclusion that Walter sounds like a controlling husband by the time you reach this quote if you haven't figured out the red flags from the two incidences of him taking his children away from the wife just to test her patience.
Quote 3:
"I blame him thus: that he considereth noght / In tyme comynge what hym myghte bityde, / But in his lust present was al his thoght, / As for to hauke and hunte on every syde. / Wel ny alle othere cures leet he slyde, / And eek he nolde - and that was worst of alle - / Wedde no wyf for noght that may bifalle." (2, ll. 78-84)
This quote occurs near the beginning of the story where it first describes Walter the Marquis. The second and third line of the quote where it describes him as someone who doesn't seem to think of possible consequences for his actions fits him since later on in the story, he didn't seem to think about the possibility of people spreading rumors about how he killed his children when he decides to take away his children from his wife to be raised elsewhere. I think the use of the words "hauke and hunte" is oddly accurate in describing his motivations to get what he wants because once he marries Grisildis, he has the idea to test her patience and goes after it. He mainly tries to hit the possible weak spots in her heart that might make her lose patience and leave him, such as making her give up her children, seems similar to how it is done when hunting for an animal.
Annotated Bibliography:
Article 1:
McCall, John P. "The Clerk's Tale And The Theme Of Obedience*." Modern Language Quarterly 27.3 (1966): 260-269. Academic Search Complete. Web. 19 Oct. 2014.
This short, 10-paged journal article/literary criticism talks about the Clerk's Tale and the idea of how Grisilde willingly gives up her free will in order to achieve sovereignty. I would say the intended audience of this paper would be for someone who has read the other arguments, who has read the Clerk's Tale, who is a little familiar with religious references, and those who are English majors (since this article is published from University of Cincinnati so it can be assumed that the author is most likely a professor). He shows off his thesis firstly by telling us his thesis is different from other people who believe that Grisilde is "'an ideal masochist'" (260) for enduring Walter's test. Then later on he makes the intriguing point of how Grisilde's sacrifices of her will and joy is rewarded similarly with a Christ-like resurrection of being the new wife that Walter "remarries" in the fifth part of the story. I would say this is a decent article to show for an alternative idea from seeing Grisilde as an unintentional victim of Walter's control. This article is from 1966, so this article is pretty old as well as his references since they are from the 1950s and 1960s (which was probably recent in McCall's time).
Article 2:
Ashe, Laura. "Reading Like A Clerk In The Clerk's Tale." Modern Language Review 101.4 (2006): 935-944. Academic Search Complete. Web. 19 Oct. 2014.
This 10-paged journal article talks of the idea of the story being a religious allegory for being rewarded for your sacrifices, similar to the journal McCall wrote, except it also talks about the Clerk. I think the intended audience is definitely someone who is familiar with religious elements, and someone who is either an English or Humanities major (since Laura Ashe is an Associate Professor studying Medieval Literature at the Worcester College in Oxford, England). Ashe, within the article, argues against other theories she has heard from others, such as Mann's proposal of Grisilde, being in the same state of being numb to the events around her, pressures Walter to change (Mann 817). This article is good for not just arguing against other articles a little more effectively than McCall's moments of criticizing other authors, but also for her comparison of Grisilde and the Clerk and how they are similar, a topic of which is rarely seen in other articles; This would be helpful for when I want to figure out why a Clerk would tell such a story. This journal, and the one written by Mitchell, is most likely the most recent one I have found so far.
Article 3:
Mitchell, J. Allan. "Chaucer's Clerk's Tale And The Question Of Ethical Monstrosity." Studies In Philology 102.1 (2005): 1-26. Academic Search Complete. Web. 19 Oct. 2014.
This 26-paged article talks about a couple of different interpretations that The Clerk's Tale could take on, such as the feminist approach where The Clerk's Tale might show some aspect of misogyny, much like how other people who have read The Prioress's Tale might think of the possibility that Chaucer might be antisemitic. I think the intended audience is definitely for those who are English majors and those who know about the Bible and can recognize other literature references, since Mitchell is an English professor who specializes in Medieval Literature at the University of Victoria in England. Mitchell definitely admits that there isn't any one solid way to interpret The Clerk's Tale before he goes on to talk about a couple of points, which is split up into sections. It can get confusing at times because it isn't clear what his view is until you reach around page 16 of the article, but at the same time such confusion would be what drives home the point that the story is complex and doesn't have one solid interpretation of it. This would be good for arguing how there's many ways to interpret and analyze the text, as well as providing a Feminist perspective to Clerk's Tale and the view that Grisildis's choice to obey Walter to a T.
Checkpoint 3:
Query:
Before I looked into the journal articles, I only had a couple of questions in mind from what I read of The Clerk's Tale, which were "Why does Grisildis put up with Walter's tests?" and " What historical context (if any) can be connected to Grisildis's obedient behavior?" Those two questions pretty much helped me to guide where I would go to start my research. After looking through the research articles, I ended up with a lot of questions relating to what I have researched where it sort of started opening up a can of worms in terms of how I should interpret the text and the characters. These questions include:
- Is Grisildis really in the wrong for accepting Walter's conditions and following them almost without question?
- What are the wifely standards of Chaucer's time, and which has Pagan elements and Christian elements?
- What kind of story would The Clerk's Tale be considered? A parable? An allegory?
- Does the story reflect Chaucer's own opinion towards woman and wives? If so, is it a negative opinion or a positive opinion towards women?
- What does knowing the Clerk's point of view have to do with the story he tells? How are the Clerk and Grisildis similar?
Those questions were from what I gathered from reading the articles and the book and for the most part, some of the papers make me question some passages in the text in terms of how my original reading of The Clerk's Tale seems to either agree, disagree, or make me think a little deeper on what the article authors say.Trends in Scholarship:
I have started to notice several patterns within the articles I have been reviewing in terms of viewpoints as well as what article some of these articles and book reference the most. The first would be what they would consider what kind of story The Clerk's Tale could be considered since the articles consider seeing it as an allegory on being a devoted Christian by enduring the test and sacrificing your joy where you ultimately get rewarded for passing the test. Another thing I noticed is a debate where it wonders on whether if it is bad for Grisildis to comply with Walter's request in the sense that so far 2 articles (Mitchell's and Finnegan's) have said that Grisildis is possibly a monster for following Walter's orders. There is something that all these articles have in common (more specifically, Mitchell, Shutters, Finnegan, Ashe, and McCall; in other words, every article I have so far that isn't the book by Hallissy) is that they reference the same book by Elizabeth Salter titled Chaucer: The Knight's Tale and The Clerk's Tale, but what's different is how they have used the book in their paper. Mitchell and Ashe uses it to help support his paper, while McCall, Finnegan, and Shutters seems to only use it for reference for me to look it up myself.
Annotated Bibliography:
Book 1:
Hallissy, Margaret. Clean Maids, True Wives, Steadfast Widows: Chaucer's Women and Medieval Codes of Conduct. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1993. Print.
This book mostly talks about the women within all of Chaucer's works, not just The Clerk's Tale, and how these women behaved in the Medieval times. The intended audience would be someone who is an English major and a feminist since Hallissy is an English professor who specializes in Medievalist Literature and the women in them at C. W. Post College, Long Island University. Out of the over 200 pages in the book, only 12 of its pages are dedicated to The Clerk's Tale, which is collected under the chapter titled "Women's Speech and Domestic Harmony"; this would show that the rest of the book focuses more so on the other texts than they do on The Clerk's Tale. Hallissy admits that there is more than one possible interpretation of the text but, unlike Mitchell, she narrows her view a little immediately afterwards by going with the interpretation that Walter is a monster who doesn't give Grisildis many choices. This is a good text for when you want to figure out a little bit behind why Grisildis acts the way she does and how it is part of what a wife has to do to keep her husband calm.
Article 2:
Shutters, Lynn. "Griselda's Pagan Virtue." Chaucer Review 44.1 (2009): 61-83. Academic Search Complete. Web. 9 Nov. 2014.
This journal article/ essay talks about comparing Clerk's Tale and Legend of Good Women (both texts are written by Chaucer), and how Grisildis takes on the lessons of Pagan virtues of being a wife and mixes it with Christianity.I think the targeted audience for this would be English students and those who are feminist, since Shutters teaches English and specializes in gender studies, medieval literature at Colorado State University. Shutters's argument also heads toward finding the similarities between Clerk's Tale and Legend of Good Women (for which there was enough to make that point since they are pretty close in plot except that the latter uses Pagan characters) and tell which aspects of Pagan wifely values are there and which ones got changed to a Christian aspect. Other stories that were similar to The Canterbury Tales, such as Chaucer's Physician's Tale, Franklin's Tale, and Boccaccio's De Claris Mulieribus, but used Pagan characters, were also used for comparison for a brief bit at the end. This article is good when you want to compare Clerk's Tale to other stories, as well as used to have an idea of how the virtues of womanhood from Pagan and Christian ideas came together and influenced Grisildis's character.
Article 3:
Finnegan, Robert Emmett. "`She Should Have Said No To Walter': Griselda's Promise In The Clerk's Tale." English Studies 75.4 (1994): 303-321. Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 Nov. 2014.
This 19 page article/literary criticism is one that appears to not have anything worth of thought but turns out to have one or two good things. I partly think the intended audience might be for those who study English, knows some Latin, reads deeply into words on their root meanings and having historical knowledge of what laws were there during Grisildis's time because Finnegan is an English Graduate Professor who specializes in Old and Middle English and Literature. Finnegan's thesis, based on what I thought the intended audience would be, is reliant on interpreting 2 words (assenten and consenten), using the rules of the court from Grisildis's time, and then "judge [Grisildis] accordingly" (303) for her being an accomplice in the homicide of her children (even though it is known to those who read the story that the children are alive). Finnegan seems to have started off on a semi-good step in trying to assert his notion, but ultimately I had trouble along the way but it wasn't trouble in comprehending so much as the way the article is set up. I'm a little disappointed in this article because over 5 pages of it has quotes every other paragraph which can get a little tiring and annoying to read, even more so when some of the quotes seem to be in Latin and there is no translation for it except for Finnegan having a tiny summary before the quote. Finnegan seems to have also noticed the allegory of comparing Grisildis to famous Biblical characters like Abraham, but he tears that apart by saying that God wouldn't have done to Abraham what Walter did to Grisildis and saying that Walter's actions "ruined an Abraham named Grisildis" (321). This article might be somewhat good if I decided to argue against the articles that seem to imply or outright say that Grisildis had no choice or that Grisildis is innocent in this story.
Checkpoint 4:
Journal Article Abstract:
(may be subject to change as I write my paper):
Grisildis is a poor woman who ended up marrying a rich Marquis named Walter, and in order to stay married to him, she has to endure his tests. His tests include taking away the children one at a time, kicking her out for a new wife and making her set up the wedding for them, just to see if she seems the most patient woman worthy of him. My ultimate question is why, why would she put up with that from her husband, especially if the Envoy warns against having the wives being tested like that? I would be working to answer that question along with one of my query questions "is Grisildis really in the wrong for accepting Walter's conditions and following them almost without question?" This would involve a little bit of analyzing of Grisildis and Walter with analytical help with the likes of Elizabeth Salter and others who believe the characters are viewed differently depending on how you view the text, whether it be from a religious aspect, a realism aspect, a feminist aspect, or a human aspect. I would define the "human aspect" as the reaction many people would have to the story (Walter is the abusive husband while Grisildis is just following his orders and being patient) but with a little more thought put into it. Each of these aspects affects how Grisildis and Walter are perceived in the story where it sometimes paints one or the other as the villain. The ones who perceive Walter as a villain are Morgan (human aspect), Ashton (feminist aspect), and Salter (for the realism view); Morgan also takes it a bit further by stating that their marriage was more of a lord and subject relationship than a husband and wife relationship once they got married. Ashton and Mitchell provide most of the feminist aspect of the work. Mitchell brings up a good point at the possibility of Grisildis scaring Walter by following his orders very closely, with Salter possibly agreeing with that when she says his emotion was more "guilty surprise than admiration" (Salter 57), though Mitchell thinks Grisildis is in the wrong for doing so. The Envoy will also be briefly considered because Mitchell sees the Envoy as a joke when it really should be seen more as a warning.
Annotated Bibliography:
Book 2:
Salter, Elizabeth. Chaucer: The Knight's Tale and the Clerk's Tale. Great Neck, New York: Barron's Educational Series, Inc, 1962. Print.
This is it: The book that every journal article in checkpoints 2 and 3 have been referencing (or rather, Finnegan, Shutters, Mitchell, Ashe, and McCall). This small 70 page book talks about both The Knight's Tale and The Clerk's Tale in detail with bolded sections to indicate what she will be talking about in each section of thought. This would be aimed at English majors since the book says that Salter is a "University Lecturer in English [in] Cambridge" (page isn't numbered but it has the title, author, city of publication, and publishing company on it). Only about the last 28 pages (excluding the "summing up" and bibliography sections) are dedicated to The Clerk's Tale. Salter seems to view Grisildis and Walter from 2 perspectives: a religious perspective and a realism perspective. For the religious aspect section, there's a mix of "Grisildis is like certain religious figures in the bible, so the story is a religious allegory/parable" like what Ashe and McCall would argue (though a little less of it), and a bit of how Grisildis and Walter are perceived. There are also comparisons to Petrarch (one of the source materials Chaucer used for the story) before she talks about the language style and close analysis of words (that's long and not as narrowed down to two words like what Finnegan) that makes it a religious fable (aka, the long and not too relevant to my topic portion of the paper). As for how Grisildis and Walter are perceived religious-wise, you can't really sympathize with Grisildis since in religious texts those who suffer get rewarded at the end, as well as the possibility that it can be "comparable to [a] saint's life" (40) when read from a "purely human standpoint" (40); as for Walter, Salter believes Walter's timeline for the punishments towards Grisildis is a little vague so it might mean it didn't last as long in the story or any other off-camera behavior. The realist aspect is basically telling us that Grisilda has inner thoughts and emotions that allow her to have brief moments of emotion and assertion that allow us as a reader to sympathize her, which means she won't have that distancing effect of being comparable to a religious symbol. As for Walter, the realism aspect sees him as a fiend with a petty motive to test Grisildis's patience. This book would be good for analyzing Grisildis and Walter based on how they are perceived differently depending on how the story is being viewed.
Article 2:
Morgan, Gerald. "The Logic of the Clerk's Tale". The Modern Language Review 104.1 (2009): 1-25. JSTOR. Web. 24 November 2014.
This 25 page journal article talks about how this test of patience is necessary to teach the value of patience and humility because Grisildis is meant to be seen as a personification of those things, and not meant to be seen as something husbands and wives do to each other (6). I believe the target audience for this article would be English majors and those who study Chaucer, since he is a lecturer in Dublin whose other articles were on Chaucer. I am a little skeptical of Morgan's reputation because even though he is a lecturer in the School of English at Trinity College Dublin (in Dublin, Ireland) with publications (from 2008-2009) revolving around Chaucer and his other tales, it's not good if the school's website* says he is "on probation" and it doesn't tell what he did to be on it. Continuing on with the article, it feels like there are parts where it seems as though he mentions the wanted parts for a bit and then I skim until I find another good part, even though he does what Salter does and have bolded section headers for separate thoughts, except that he organizes them by events in the story not on the theme of the thought. As for what he thinks about Walter, he believes the relationship between Walter and Grisildis is more lord and subject than husband and wife (11), and Grisildis's will isn't considered when Walter asked Janicula for Grisildis's hand in marriage. I think this article has potential for providing a different viewpoint on Grisildis and Walter, even though there are times where he focuses at times on the Clerk and seems to have written what appears to be an intellectual equivalent to a reaction journal with quotes, some summary, and analyses. I think this is also probably the first article (aside from Hallissey's book) that wasn't suggesting that Grisildis is comparable to a religious figure or that the story is a parable/allegory, so this would increase the value of the paper having a different view on things.
Article 3:
Ashton, Gail. "Patient Mimesis: Griselda and the Clerk's Tale". Chaucer Review 32.3 (1998): 232-38. JSTOR. Web. 24 November 2014.
This 7 page journal article/literary criticism* talks about the possibility of Grisildis hiding her true self behind a mask when she following Walter's orders. I think the target audience for this might be English majors and feminists since she is a lecturer in Manchester, UK that focuses on women and literature and has written a few books on how to make it easier to study Chaucer. Though after reading through it, it read more like a feminist literary criticism due to the short length and some of the phrases said, such as "patriarchy" and "desired feminine behavior". This was a decent paper to read through since I have never considered this possibility for Grisildis before, even though I had a sneaking question on why she was in an emotionless state of mind throughout the test. The thing I didn't like about this is when I was reading it I kept stopping once every so often and mutter to myself either "That's kind of a bold claim there" or "OK, how so?", but after rereading it I realized the answer for the claims were right after it. This might be good for providing a feminist view that focuses on Grisilda and how she has to behave this way so she can appear patient to Walter. Also, Laura Ashe references and quotes from this article in her footnotes, so that way if I make a decision to let this one go in the final paper Ashton's work can live on referenced.
*I was confused because I thought it was a journal article since it was under the results for scholarly peer-reviewed articles, the results call it an academic journal, and it is published in a journal article, yet the document type says "Literary Criticism"; I guess this is what happens when you don't read or pay close enough attention to the document type section of the article page when doing a search. This confusion is why I will be editing the other annotations with "journal article/literary criticism" to indicate the ones whose article page matched the aforementioned confusing situation.
Argument Against Scholarly Article:
The article I will be arguing against is J. Allan Mitchell's "Chaucer's Clerk's Tale and the Question of Ethical Monstrosity" because one of his statements have rubbed me the wrong way. The statement I disagree with involves his reading of the Envoy since he reads one of the lines as a "joke...that women are better (italics were in original quote) than that nowadays because prudent wives would not consent to idolatry or homicide!" (15). I dislike that interpretation for a few reasons: 1. that joke is reliant on assuming that the people who are reading the Clerk's Tale actually believe the people of back then treated their wives like how Walter treated his; 2. it is reliant on ; and 3. if he had actually read through the whole Envoy instead of picking out bits and pieces, he might have noticed the Envoy is there to warn and discourage the men who read this story, take it literally or as truth, and decide to see if their wife is as patient as Grisildis. Mitchell's argument would not have been any more convincing if he quoted the second stanza with his fractured quoting of the first stanza because while it may help his argument by actaully involving the joked "noble wyves, ful of heigh prudence" (1183), the second stanza is more of a warning towards the women who could become potential Grisildises by telling them not to let their husbands treat them as badly as Walter.